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Conservatives find their voice: Romney is unacceptable

No one is in the upper right quadrant, the best place to be

There have been three primaries since I last posted about the 2012 race for the U.S. presidency. The weakest candidates have dropped out (Bachmann, Huntsman and Perry). The four remaining candidates are pretty much where they were three weeks ago. None of them have improved their electability or acceptance scores very much. Neither has Obama, who continues to have high disapproval poll ratings despite some moderate economic improvement. The primary has just begun with only a handful of delegates set aside. The campaign promises a frisky, contentious year full surges and pull-backs. It will be quite exciting.

GOP party elites are dancing with a dilemma: should they continue supporting the most 'electable' candidate (Real) or the one who can best connect with the voters (Win)? Up until now, they thought 'electability' was enough. Romney had been preparing for four years, laying down an army of supporters. So what if he's bland?  People will vote for a rock if they think it can beat Obama in the national election.

It turns out they were wrong. 'Not-Romney' got more votes in each state, every time. Their man on the pedestal only took one of the three primaries. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, a man who causes internal bleeding in GOP aristocrats and this week's leading Not-Romney, blazes ahead of Morose Mitt. Why? Because Gingrich connects with people and his passion touches an anger inside their hearts. Likewise, Santorum outshone Romney in Iowa with his common man message. Romney looks more like Thurston Howell.

So, GOP leaders, what's it going to be? Continue to support Mitt, but send him to Wal-Mart to observe proles? Put an arm around Newt and douse him with Ritalin when he's in the public eye? Or send some money to Santorum, the one candidate who seems human and not neurotic? Your current strategy isn't working.

My thoughts on the candidates:

• Bachmann never stood a chance: she lacked relevant experience and her presence annoyed most people despite her conviction and intelligence. Huntsman never connected with normals and his accomplishments were mostly invisible to them. Perry, the strongest candidate (and the one I thought best suited to run) started too late. I hope Perry tries again in 2016.

• Gingrich just cannot stay knocked down. The press wrote him off several times after he self-wounded his campaign for the presidency. But oh, can he give a good debate! And his speeches this summer were stirring. Gingrich has high potential on the Win score if he can control himself and gain strength (Real) to dethrone The One Who Calms The Oceans.

  A caution: Gingrich is also a big black testosterone cloud that shoots blue lighting. Are voters flocking to him because he blasts media creatures like George Stephanopolous? Are they hoping he gets a few good ones on Obama's upturned nose? With Newt Gingrich, you get revenge. That's guaranteed. Is he a leader?

• Santorum has done very well in the recent debates. He barely pulled ahead of Romney in Iowa. Although he is not the Comeback Kid like Gingrich is, Santorum has steadily improved his position. Of all the candidates, he is the only one who connects with regular people. Santorum comes from immigrant  background. Unlike Romney, he knows how ordinary people live and the pressures they face. Santorum seems to like people.

  Santorum is the impoverished candidate. He needs funds and highly-placed friends to stay in the race much longer. He also has made some bad decisions (Arlen Specter, union support ... illegal immigration). Santorum has some baggage, though not the full-sized steamer trunks Romney has.

• Ron Paul has been a consistent player, although never on the highest pedestal. In many ways he is like Romney with lots of campaign 'oomf.' But Paul connects with with Paul People. I don't see him as a serious candidate for regular voters. Ron Paul has very little experience and few accomplishments in his thirty years in government.

• Mitt Romney? He's Poppy Bush but tainted Massachusetts Blue. 'RomneyCare' is reappearing in the race again. Voters don't buy his message that he is the most "electable." Is "most likely to beat Obama" just campaign spin? Is Mitt Romney's image merely generated? Is he sincere? These are not helpful questions but voters are now asking them.

• And there there is Barak Obama, the man with a -17% approval rating. America is ignoring him right now: all the attention is on the GOP race. Even so, his failed promises and the weak economy are holding his numbers down. When he speaks or when he just does something, his numbers plummet.

  Honestly, I can see any of the GOP candidates prevail against Obama, even Romney.

  It should be easy to push over a statue, especially with feet of clay.

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Organizations Have Lizard Brains

From the Panama Canal Museum

It took ten years to build the Panama Canal with shovels and steam power over a century ago. Many people lost their fortunes and lives digging the "Trench." The end result was an engineering marvel: a continent was severed in half and two oceans were conjoined. Humanity did what Nature takes eons to do. Determination, focus and courage saw the project to completion. Gaia said "WOW!"

George Will wrote about the latest Panama Canal expansion in his column last Sunday. Today, there is another project  to expand the Panama for larger, modern container ships. Building new locks will take eight years to complete. Sad to say, many of  the eastern U.S. ports cannot accept the new 'post-Panamax' ships once they start chugging through. Their harbors are not deep enough to accommodate the behemoth's larger drafts.

Savannah,Georgia, knew this would be a problem back in 1999, but thirteen years later, the city has yet to complete any dredging studies. Assuming Savannah starts the five-year project immediately, she loses three years of large ship commerce. Mr. Will goes on to blame bureaucracy and litigation, (the point of his column), but at a deeper level, Savannah's problems are based in civic fear and hesitation. Environmentalists toss lawsuits, governments commission additional studies and bankers prolong reviews. Everyone seems afraid to commit. Why?

Savannah's lizard brain has taken over. If you don't know about lizard brains, you probably haven't read any Seth Godin. He knows that every person has primitive reptilian brain underneath their highly advanced mammalian lobes. This lizard brain is concerned with self-preservation at all costs. Lizard brains were useful for dealing with velociraptors; today they convince us to stonewall projects, insist on workflows, and demand approvals and second opinions. It keeps scary things away.

Resistance to change, to bold action, is a natural consequence of age. When cities, countries, companies or people get comfortable, they tend to resist bold action. And self-interest relies on the lizard to keep a status quo. As the decades pass, large groups become more inert. Barricades of process-based bureaucracy insure stability. Sameness is rewarded.

Eventually Savannah may dredge its harbors, but it may take a while. In the meantime, the post-Supermax ships will be happily unloading cargo in the nice, deep harbors of a hungrier, (younger?) port city.

"The successful completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 was a great psychological moment for the United States, providing powerful evidence that this country could do anything it set its mind to. That attitude built the Hoover Dam, produced the industrial miracle that won World War II, constructed the Interstate Highway System, and sent men to the moon. Today, it seems, we can’t even dredge a harbor, a technology that goes back centuries."

-- John Gordon Steel

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Money? Yes. Pundit Favorite? Yes. Acceptable? No.

From the Swamp blog

The man who never gets above 25% in the GOP polls has the party nomination in the bag. Most of my favorite pundits think so -- in fact, they have been saying this for several months now. Their reasoning? Romney is the most electable: he has the money; he's played a shrewd game by letting his more conservative opponents fight amongst themselves; and Romney gives good debate. It's just a matter of time. Resitance is futile.

Conservative commentators agree that Romney is not a real conservative, but they reason all conservative voters will hold their noses and vote for Romney when he runs against Obama. What choice is there? Just deal with it, get behind the man and move on.

Not so fast. Romney has low -- LOW -- acceptance amongst conservatives. If they choose to not vote in the 2012 U.S. Presidential elections, Obama will win.

We went down this way before, just four years ago. Remember John McCain? The GOP brought forward a boring old man, a moderate Republican who inspired no one at all. Romney is McCain, Part Deux, but without the distinguished war record.

What is Mitt Romney?

1. He's part of the political class. The son of George Romney, Mitt is a political aristocrat like the Bushes or Kennedys. The political class is disconnected from the values and worries of most Americans. House Romney never mingled with the hoi polloi. Regardless of political party, the politcal class attends to its own needs first. Average Americans are not a priority.

2. He's fan of the Value-Added Tax.

3. Romney is tainted blue. Romney was governor of Massachusetts, the epicenter of liberal wierdness. Massachusetts is the Land of Bawney Fwank and Sister Elizabeth Warren. The Kennedys spawn there. Newt Gingrich calls Romney a 'Massachusetts Moderate.' He's right.

4. He is the father of RomneyCare. Romney's personal health insurance mandate is an assault on personal liberty. RomneyCare is abhorrent to conservatives. The man will not renounce this health care fiasco. What assurance do they that he won't sustain ObamaCare in some fashion? Romney promised to undo ObamaCare, but ...

5. ... he is a flip-flopper. The man lacks a core on most points. He is on record being "for" and "against" the same issues, depending on the polling of the electorate at the moment.

6. Romney was a of LDS leader, the leader of the Boston Stake. I expect problems with separating church and state from a man who is a 'spiritual leader.' Americans expect their presidents to be influenced by their faith, not bishops influencing others.

The GOP is making a strategic mistake promoting a candidate who is merely 'electable.' That's not enough. America wants a leader, an inspirational person with an appealing message, and a persuader who will convince them to take a difficult road. They do not need a milquetoast-y technocrat.

Winning the election is not the end game. Winning hearts is.

Mitt Romney will not get many votes from conservative Americans. Without this block, he will certainly lose the 2012 election. Romney is not very electable after all.

 I am a conservative independent. I want someone better.

Mitt versus Mitt

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Each day some of my 'What I Can Do' becomes 'What I Used To Do.' It hurts my eyes to read lables on cans and little boxes. I strain to see my fingernails when I am cutting them.

Dr Optometrist says my eyes are still good. I'm not ready for bifocals, yet, but he suggested 'readers.' I bought a three-pack at the drug store. They are wonderful!

Other news: I used my first senior discount at the movies. First time. Asking for it was easy, but realizing I could use it anytime thereafter for the rest of my life bothered me.

I looked into the mirror and saw my father. Yay.

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Using Business Tools to Sort The Candidates

Bubble size reflects candidate 'worth' based on my values

I've become a political hobbyist since I came to social media. I read the local newspaper, get RSS feeds, follow Twitter politicos and I watch news twice a day. I seek balance so I can stay informed. I am a conservative person: fiscally, socially and on international affairs.

As I write this in late December, 2011, there are seven candidates campaigning for the GOP caucus in Iowa. Barack Obama has already been campaigning for reelection since the start of the year. I'm overwhelmed. Each poll, each newsflash, each morning analysis throws me back to Point A. Who do I want to be U.S. president? Maybe I should use my business toolkit to sort things out.

Treating the presidential candidates as 'products' with votes as 'market share,' it becomes easier to sort things out. I used two tools: a modified Cause and Effect Matrix (C&E) to identify each candidate's 'worth' to me, and a Real-Win-Worth.

Each C&E criterion was chosen by me and its relative importance to the other criteria are also mine. For example, I see the Economy as the top priority, 'Family Values' as further down, and 'Immigration' isn't a priority at all. If you were to do this, you would have different criteria, weights and values. See mine, below.

(download)

Click here to download:

straining-the-presidential-campaign-through-a-spreadsheet-pBsghcjdhqnoDojnkncB.zip (155 KB)

The RWW is a little more objective. For Real, I subsitituted campaign strength (war chest, foot soldiers, experience). Win is market-based and emotion, so I used criteria based on the assumption that voters were customers. Here were the emotional criteria (trust, inspiration, message and presence).

(download)

Click here to download:

straining-the-presidential-campaign-through-a-spreadsheet-cziDvhDklhlyrumcnFEH.zip (222 KB)

What do the charts tell us?

1. None of the candidates are in the happy quadrant, in the upper right corner. They are clustered in the weakest place, which is to be expected this early in the race. Most will drop out soon because 'Real' will cull them. They can't sustain a campaign to move them into a better place.
    
2. Romney scores very well on 'Real' with his financial backing and prudent planning. Even so, Romney is no more acceptable to the overall voter market than his competitors. Romney is unappealing to me ('Worth') compared to the others. He better start connecting more with voters. My favorite pundits keep saying Romney owns the GOP race, mostly because he scores well on Real criteria. They are ignoring how unacceptable he is to conservatives. If it comes down to a Obama vs. Romney race, I won't "hold my nose and vote;" I'll stay home.
    
3. Obama, like Romney, is well positioned on the 'Real' axis. Still, Obama is no more acceptable than the flock of GOP candidates. Obama can move to the positive quadrant if he can encourage people to trust him. His strategy based on a negative campaign will not help move him in the direction he wants. He has the smallest Worth bubble because I think the man is incompetent and lazy.
    
4. Gingrich has a weak 'Real,' but a good Win. I have heard him speak. He can motivate people through difficult choices, which we need even though there is some baggage from the 90s. I also scored Gingrich high on Worth. He is the only proven candidate to fix a major U.S. entitlement problem -- Welfare -- with Bill Clinton.
    
5. Ron Paul has the highest Worth score. This shocked me, because I really fear him. He does hit my value points well. Real problems in the Win score -- I don't think voters will accept Paul despite his loyal foot soldiers.
    
6. Santorum was lower when I first ran the spreadsheet, but he's been doing well in Iowa this week. He scores higher than Romney for me. I would like to see Santorum run against Obama instead of Romney.
    
7. Bachmann has no chance. She is loathed by the media and she has a grating personal style. People just hate her. I have heard her speak -- she is my representative -- and I think this is undeserved. Bachmann lacks executive experience and her campaign team has collapsed.
    
8. Perry could be better. I do not understand how he could be so successful (his high Worth) with the Texas market and fail with the U.S. electorate and press.

     

9. Huntsman? Well, the media likes him. I don't. And like Bachmann, Hunstman has no 'oomph' to gain any 'Real' points

I work for a corporation that always deals with uncertainty. We use analytical tools to parse mushy data. In teams and no small amount of debate, we define success criteria. The comptroller is there to keep us down to earth. Marketing brings data about competitors and customers, and wants and needs of the market. Engineers know materials, manufacturing and their capabilities to produce.

I've been on teams who have used Real-Win-Worth (RWW) analysis to decide whether to enter a market with a new product. RWW is great for forcing teams to think through what's important and what is not. If the team decides to proceed with product development, they revisit the RWW periodically when time reveals more useful data. 

RWW tells business teams to run after those projects where there is a real chance of Winning the market share with superior (Real)  manufacturing or technical expertise. You want projects that score in the upper right corner with nice large bubbles (Worth). If your project is too small or it is too far down the axis, then either stop the project or change something to improve Real or Win.

This RWW analysis would be more accurate if it came from a team of people with different political perspectives and values. Discussion would uncover other criteria. We can assume the scores would be better balanced.

I am a former Six Sigma Black Belt and DFSS engineer. I've lead teams through RWW workshops. I plan to stay the course on this RWW through the year and I'll 'vote' or 'buy' a few times through the year.

Right now, none of them are worth 'buying.'